Fringe show cancelled after threats from Arthur Miller estate

By Cameron Woodhead

In a move bound to cause unease in Australia's arts community, a show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival has been cancelled after legal threats from the estate of playwright Arthur Miller.

Cease-and-desist demands were received by the creators of the droll comedy Death of a Salesman: The Sitcom on opening night, despite having been advertised for months, the show's writer Danny McGinlay says.

"We responded by saying we're not doing Death of a Salesman," he says, "It's a satirical show. We changed its name [to the unwieldy The Loman Empire: The Sitcom – an Unauthorised Satire of Death of a Salesman] as an olive branch, but the Miller estate took that, turned it into a rod and whacked us with it."

McGinlay didn't go in blind. He consulted copyright lawyers during the writing of his play. "All of them said we'd have no problem getting it up," he says. "It's not like I'm a plagiarist. The work is 75 per cent original. The parts of Miller's dialogue that are used are set ups for punchlines."

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Death of a Salesman: The Sitcom was cancelled after legal threats from the estate of Arthur Miller.

The artists thought they were in the clear, until the estate sent a follow-up email a few days later.

"They said they believed the show still infringes copyright, even though they'd never seen it," McGinlay says. "They hadn't looked at a script. They knew nothing about it. They didn't want to listen to the facts and they weren't up for conversation."

This isn't the first time the Miller estate has clashed with Australian artists. At Belvoir in 2012, Simon Stone's production of Death of a Salesman was compelled to reinsert the play's original ending, which had been excised, after the estate threatened legal action.

But the latest intervention goes much further, with a potentially chilling effect on comedians writing satire of works under copyright.

"Ours was a very different show to Miller's," McGinlay says. "It was parody. Imagine the makers of the Scream franchise suing Scary Movie. And I hope Arthur Miller's estate doesn't mind me saying, but I did make it a lot funnier. Death of a Salesman is a great work, but come on mate, where are the laughs?"

McGinlay and the cast and crew are surprised and angry the Miller estate has been so heavy-handed. "They're playing hardball with a tiny fringe show on at a community hall," McGinlay says, "No one is making money from it. It's totally inappropriate."

"I spent months writing this," he adds, "Up to a year casting, refining, rehearsing. I got my wife to do the set design. And we have a new baby, so we've been working our fingers to the bone with a five-month-old to deal with. It's a lot of sacrifice, and for someone who has never seen the play to close it down? That's pretty unfair. I was so angry I didn't even want to have a beer."